From where Edmond Valentin was posted he could only see the columns of black smoke as it rose steadily from the farms and villages now burning in all directions. He, like nearly everyone else, disbelieved the stories of murder and mutilation, for they were really in credible.

Surely the Kaiser would never treat little Belgium in such a manner after his Empire solemnly guaranteeing its neutrality!

If so, of what use were treaties? Why should anybody's signature be honoured further, either in business or in social life?

Bang! There was a blood-red flash, the air was filled with blue-grey smoke and a poisonous odour which made one's eyes smart. For a second, Edmond was staggered by the terrible force of the concussion, for he had been dealt a blow from behind which sent him reeling forward heavily.

The air was filled with flying fragments, and he held his breath. It was as though an earthquake had occurred.

Then, when the smoke cleared, he saw a dozen of his comrades lying shattered about him, including two of the men at his gun. Not far away the scorched gra.s.s had been torn up, and a great hole showed in the brown earth.

He set his teeth, and bent over the two fallen men. One had been wounded in the stomach by a fragment of the sh.e.l.l, and was writhing on the ground in his death agony, uttering fearful curses upon the enemy and the Kaiser in particular; while the other, after a final convulsive shudder which shook his whole frame and told its own tale to anybody who had been under fire in battle, turned slowly over and then lay quite still.

The sh.e.l.l alas! had only been too truly placed, for not only were a dozen brave fellows lying shattered, but a splinter had also struck the breech of Edmond's gun, and it had jammed in consequence.

When serving before with the Cha.s.seurs he had been in charge of a machine-gun, and hence was thoroughly familiar with its mechanism.

Therefore, quite calmly, as though no fight were in progress, he quickly unscrewed the parts, discovered that a pin was bent and knocked it straight, and within five minutes the pom-pom was again pouring forth, its rain of lead sweeping to and fro across the railway line opposite.

Suddenly, with a roar and flash, another earthquake occurred. The air instantly became filled with black acrid smoke and flying fragments of sh.e.l.l from one of the enemy's howitzers beyond the hills, and at that moment the trench became a perfect inferno, for deadly sh.e.l.ls were falling upon it, and dozens of Edmond's comrades were being maimed or killed on every hand.

As the smoke cleared slightly he bent again to sight the gun, when his eye caught the bridge below, whereon the dastardly enemy had placed that vanload of brave Belgians as a parti-coloured screen.

Just as he looked, he saw a sh.e.l.l, fired deliberately by a German gunner, strike the van, explode, and next second there remained only a heap of wreckage, among which the twenty poor fellows who had been imprisoned in it were lying heaped, dead and dying, some of them shattered out of all recognition.

"The murderers!" cried Edmond, while his men, who also noticed what had happened, loudly cursed the ruthless barbarians with whom they now found themselves confronted.

Bang! The explosion was deafening. Edmond again felt the concussion where he was crouching. It knocked his shako aside, and for a second he believed he had been hit. Yet, by a miracle, he was unharmed.

Next second an order was shouted--the order to retire!

The Germans, now using their artillery and sh.e.l.ling the Belgian trenches, were advancing. They were crossing the bridge below, and a pontoon section had already begun its work under fire.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Sh.e.l.ls were falling thickly now. Their defence had, alas! been all in vain. Edmond heard the order shouted in Flemish.

"_Vlucht! Vlucht_!" shouted the lieutenant. Edmond stood for a second like a man in a dream. The earth everywhere was being whipped by bullets.

Then he directed his men to dismantle the gun and, two others helping, each quickly shouldering a piece, the little party made off with the Cha.s.seurs over the crest of the hill and down the other side, leaving behind them, alas! many hundreds of their poor comrades.

Bang! Yet another sh.e.l.l fell, rending a great hole in the trench at the very spot where, only a few moments before, Edmond Valentin's gun had been standing.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

IN THE EAGLE'S CLAWS.

Two days later the Sixth Brigade, to which the Eighth Cha.s.seurs belonged, had been christened by the men "The Flying Column," for it had been designed to support the other brigades in action. Since their retreat from the Meuse, Edmond Valentin had marched with his regiment hither and thither; marched until he was footsore, with few intervals of rest, sometimes engaging the enemy, and then moving forward again to some new position, blindly, but with the knowledge that it was upon some general, previously conceived plan.

War is truly a strange experience. The mere man in the fighting-line shoots in a trench, lies low, smokes a cigarette and chaffs his comrades, shoots again, then advances--or retreats, as the case may be.

Rumours pa.s.s from mouth to mouth of success or of defeat; he knows not which is the truth. Retire or advance, what does it matter? If one retires it is for strategic purposes; if one advances it does not mean victory. Edmond Valentin, _sous-officier_ of infantry, was but a mere little p.a.w.n in that colossal game of world-power.

They had made a great detour around Liege, behind the forts of Lanlin, Loncin, and Flemalle, and as the fighting had now become intense near Fort Boncelles, they had been called up to a.s.sist the attacked brigade.

It was night when they reached the little village of Esneux, prettily situated on the river. On the previous day the place had been occupied by the Germans under Von Emmich, but the big guns from Boncelles had been turned upon them, and the Bavarians had been compelled to evacuate the place, not, however, before they had driven out the poor frightened inhabitants and sacked it. But the heavy sh.e.l.l-fire from the Boncelles fort had wrecked the town and set fire to it, so that when the Cha.s.seurs arrived they found it only a heap of still smoking ruins.

About nine o'clock that evening Edmond's company took up a position in a dark wood close to an old ruined chateau above the burnt-out village, but presently, with about thirty others, he was ordered out to the edge of the wood where the highroad ran to Liege. Once there, every one of them was left to his own thoughts, and Edmond, having fixed his gun in position in a ditch well covered behind a wall, sat back with his men, lit a cigarette and reflected.

He was thinking of Aimee, as he thought of her always every hour, wondering whether she had fled from Belgium, now that invasion was an accomplished fact. That day the wildest rumours had reached them-- rumours of German successes everywhere, save at Liege. It was declared, from mouth to mouth, that the French had been driven back all along the line, and that the enemy were already marching through Holland on to Antwerp--German-made lies which were, later on, proved to have been circulated to create panic.

As they waited there, gazing anxiously across the river where blood-red glares showed away in the distance--farms and homesteads fired deliberately by the Uhlans--the moon rose brightly in the clear sky.

Now and then could be heard the distant rumble of heavy artillery, while at infrequent intervals the forts of Embourg across the river and Boncelles on their left roared forth, showing sharp, angry flashes in the night.

Close by where Edmond had taken up his position was a small stone-built hut, roofless and in ruins; but upon its walls he noticed that a big white paper had been pasted.

He strode up to it, and in the moonlight examined it. The poster was one of the enemy's proclamations which had been printed in Berlin in readiness months before, and he read as follows:

AU PEUPLE BELGE!

C'est a mon plus grand regret que les troupes Allemandes se voient forcees de franchir la frontiere de la Belgique. Elles agissant sous la contrainte d'une necessite inevitable la neutralite de la Belgique ayant ete deja violee par des officiers francais qui, sous un deguis.e.m.e.nt, aient traverse le territoire belge en automobile pour penetrer en Allemagne.

Belges! C'est notre plus grand desir qu'il y ait encore moyen d'eviter un combat entre deux peuples qui etaient amis jusqu'a present, jadis meme allies. Souvenez vous au glorieux jour de Waterloo ou c'etaient les armes allemandes qui ont contribue a fonder et etablir l'independance et la prosperite de votre patrie.

Mais il nous faut le chemin libre. Des destructions de ponts, de tunnels, de voies ferrees devront etre regardees comme des actions hostiles. Belges, vous avez a choisir.

J'espere donc que l'Armee allemande de la Meuse ne sera pas contrainte de vous combattre. Un chemin libre pour attaquer celui qui voulait nous attaquer, c'est tout ce que nous desirons.

Je donne des garanties formelles a la population belge qu'elle n'aura rien a souffrir des horreurs de la guerre; que nous payerons en monnaye les vivres qu'il faudra prendre du pays; que nos soldats se montreront les meilleurs amis d'un peuple pour lequel nous eprouvons la plus haute estime, la plus grand sympathie.

C'est de votre sagesse et d'un patriotisme bien compris qu'il depend d'eviter a votre pays les horreurs de la guerre.

Le General Commandant en Chef l'Armee de la Meuse!

Von Emmich.

It was a proclamation which was now posted everywhere, not only in the districts occupied by the Germans, but it had also been secretly affixed to walls by spies in Liege, Louvain, Charleroi, and even in Brussels itself. By it, the Germans were hoping to secure the allegiance of the Belgian people.

While this proclamation expressed regret that the German troops found themselves obliged to cross the Belgian frontier, it pointed out that only necessity compelled them to do so because French officers had violated Belgian territory by crossing from France into Germany by motor-cars. A poor excuse surely for the burning and sacking of all those little undefended frontier towns--Vise, Argenteau, Soumagne, Poulseur, and the rest.

"Belgians?" it went on. "It is our great desire that there may still be means to avoid a combat between two peoples who were friends until now, and were formerly even allies. Remember the glorious day of Waterloo, where fought the German armies who contributed to found and establish the independence and prosperity of your country.

"But we must have an open road. Any destruction of bridges, tunnels, or railways must be regarded as hostile actions. Belgians, it is for you to choose!

"I hope, then, that the German army of the Meuse will not be compelled to wage war with you. An open way to attack those who wish to attack us: that is all we desire.

"I give these formal guarantees to the Belgian population: that it will suffer nothing from the horrors of war; that we will pay in gold for the provisions that we find necessary to take from your country; that our soldiers will show themselves to be the best friends of a people for whom we cherish the highest esteem and the greatest sympathy.

"By your wisdom and patriotism, which we fully recognise, your country will be spared the horrors of war.

"General Commander-In-Chief of the Army of the Meuse,--